Beautiful Monsters
by soaring-smiles
Summary: He takes her hand in hers, and tells her the world is her oyster, if only she knows where to plunge the knife. [TenRose, assassin!AU]


**This was loosely inspired by Clint and Natasha, but sort of a little bit bloodier and darker. It's a wee bit confronting, I suspect, and kind of strange as well. Hope you like it anyway.**

* * *

He finds her bleeding to death in an alley in Moscow, red on white and gasping for air, lashes fluttering on ice and pavement, chest rising and falling and spasming. Blonde hair splays out on snow, her skin cold and mouth near blue, and he leans over her and carries the girl back to his apartment. She is light, young and pretty, under her skin of blood and dirt and glittering fabric. He bandages her tightly and lays her on the couch.

He is not called the Doctor for nothing, after all. Once, he would have shot her. Now, though, he is a man of chances.

"I came here with my boyfriend," she whispers into a cup of coffee laced with vodka. He stokes the fire and hands her a thicker fur. Her shoulders are shaking, but her voice is strong and quiet. "He got drunk."

It's the same story he's heard before. He'll hear it again. He looks at her. Thinks of the gun in his pocket and then smiles at her, all long and menace and teeth, tasting the copper in the air and her fear and grief.

"Rifle or knife?" he asks, and that's where it starts.

* * *

He keeps her.

At first it's curiosity. He shoots her boyfriend while she watches, and then leads her away quietly from the body. She is shaking, but not afraid, the wound still hurting her. He studies her face and wide eyes, the flushed cheeks and vengeance lurking in her. He can bring out the storm in anyone.

"Forget me, Rose Tyler," he says, with their fingers entwined. He doesn't want to ruin her. But this one, she looks away from Jimmy's body, and straight into his eyes.

"No," she answers, and follows him back to the apartment, boots crunching in snow, thick jacket tucked around her edges. And he's such a bad man, and she is such good girl. She would break in his hands so easy, but that, no, _that_ is not what he wants.

"Come with me," he says, at the doorway, lit by stars and a reading lamp. Her head tilts, and he watches the breath that leaks out between her lips.

"I can't," she whispers. He lets the disappointment course through him, and then closes the door. 18 seconds later he opens it again, and she hasn't moved an inch, still resolute.

"Did I mention I get the occasional assignment in Paris?" he comments casually, and she comes running, right into the wolf's lair. He can taste the fire in her.

It's about time he was distracted.

* * *

"Steady," he whispers, and guides her gloved hands in his own. She points the barrel straight at the bearded man in the leather motorcycle jacket. "Aim for the head. Take your time."

They are lying on a crowded rooftop in Munich, and the target raped his client's daughter. This assignment pays excellently, but he is the best at what he does. He hails from a family of master assassins, trained from eight to kill and maim and leave them broken on the ground. To them, death is an art form.

To the nineteen year old girl in his arms, it is emerging as a hobby. Clever thing, his Rose, and with such a trigger finger. He adores it.

"And…" he breathes, shifting his weight on top of her. She inhales, exhales, trembles. "Shoot."

The target drops dead on stone, and they are running before anyone even thinks to look up. He takes her hand in hers, and tells her the world is her oyster, if only she knows where to plunge the knife.

* * *

"My rule one," he tells her over a hot chocolate in the streets of Montmartre. "Never go in for a hand-to-hand if you can avoid it. Knife, gun, poison, those are the tools we use. You're small and the training I've given you is limited, nothing compared to years of physical dedication to martial arts or street fighting." He leans forward and captures her face in his hands, stares at her intently. "Promise me," he murmurs, "you will never try to confront anyone in physical combat."

It's true; he's avoided teaching her more than basic defence. They get cocky; think they know what to do, think they can take their targets with nothing more than hands and a well-placed kick.

They get cocky, and then they die.

He strokes her cheek with his thumb, and her eyes flutter shut. "What do I do, then, if I can't fight?" she whispers, and he sees through the veneer he's painted on her so easily it nearly hurts.

"You run," he says into her ear, teeth bared. "Rose Tyler, you run and you _never_ stop." She shudders at the feel of his mouth on her skin, and he lifts his eyes to the man behind her.

"Knife or rifle?" she whispers quietly, and he feels the beginning of her smile curve up under his thumb.

"Whatever you want," he says.

* * *

He has nightmares about burning his family. Screams and turns and snarls and she is there, hand on his stomach, bringing her face to his. Her hair touches his forehead, and she buries herself in him.

"You're not alone," she says. "There's me."

He curls against her, tugs the blankets over them, feels her heat and softness against his bone and muscle. _Not alone_, his mind chants, and he dreams of her kissing him, of a lonely house set in green hills where they could be left in peace.

In the morning they blow up a sex-slave brothel for the hell of it. She presses the detonator, sending a quick grin at the scared prostitutes beside them, and then they are pelting through the streets of Bangladesh, not seeing the flames and debris showering behind them, laughing and gasping as sirens shriek in rising tempo and furious shouts turn into a prayer.

_Mine_, he thinks, pressing her against a brick wall, pressing into her, hugging her tightly as the police run past with guns and dogs. Mine.

They won't steal her from him.

* * *

He tells her to stay behind. Begs her. This is his fight, not hers, and he will not have her harmed or put in its way. The Master is his problem- the tiny demon lurking behind him with every step. Not hers.

But she is Rose Tyler, and he's the only thing she has now. He watches his former brother in arms raise a dagger against the pale skin of her throat and realizes she already knows what he wants to tell her.

That doesn't help the feeling that slams into him when he thinks of burying her.

"Don't hurt her," he pleads hoarsely, and the Master giggles, twists the blade so it shines in the flickering light.

"Fallen in love, now? Such an ugly little thing too; so helpless and mewling- oh, you've sunk so far, you useless pathetic-"

Rose Tyler was taught well. She knows how to twist a hold. Where the artery is. How to dig the knife in so deep she can't see it anymore. And she likes his eyes, when he dies, and she likes the red staining her hands and she loves his little dying whimper.

Once she was a shopgirl.

Now, oh, now, she's _brilliant_.

He embraces her, kisses her mouth fiercely and bruisingly. "Clever girl," he whispers against her lips. She opens them, and tastes his fading fear, the desperation in his hold.

They leave the warehouse and that man's body, twisted in hatred and shock, blood pooling on the ground beside him.

The Doctor's phone rings. He answers it in a cool, flat business voice- an 'uh-huh', 'we'll be expecting payment', 'we'll be there'.

"What do they have for you this time?" she asks him. Snow lands in his hair and drifts across their skin. She loves Scotland at night.

"Not me," he corrects, and grins. "Us."

* * *

A year later, she finally gets the Barcelona he promised. They have guns in holsters and she has a knife up her skirt and adrenaline pulsing through her body.

"Happy birthday," he remarks as they inch closer to the target. Night washes over her, cool and calm. She smiles, squeezing his hand with her free one. There's a shot, one that echoes and breaks in the little alley.

"Twenty years old, and the world knows my name," she says, musingly.

"Drink?" he asks her. But the phone's already going. They are the best, after all. The Doctor and the Bad Wolf. Stuff of legend. She grins ferally.

They're what monsters have nightmares about.


End file.
